1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed toward an ironing board and, in particular, to a stowable ironing board that may be installed on a partition via a sliding, pivoting rail assembly.
2. Description of the Related Art
Closet or cabinet installed ironing boards are well known apparatuses. They efficiently utilize space within residential homes, and commercial spaces such as hotel rooms. These residential homes and commercial spaces maximize the space available in a room by providing additional shelving, drawers, and closet space within a closet system.
Further space-saving within a room is achieved by providing a space within the closet system for storage of an ironing board. An ironing board generally has two positions—an upright, stowed position, into which the ironing board is collapsed for storage in the closet system space, and an unstowed position, into which the ironing board is extended for ironing garments.
Although further room space-saving is realized by stowing an ironing board within the closet system itself, this necessarily reduces the amount of space available within the closet system. For example, in U.S. Pat. No. 7,062,871, the entire contents of which being incorporated herein by reference, while the closet system is designed to stow an ironing board, the ironing board is stored with the ironing surface parallel to the front of the closet system. Storing the ironing board in this position requires that the shelving be reduced in size in order to accommodate the dimensions of the ironing board, thus reducing the shelf storage space.
Other closet mounted ironing boards, although stored upright with the ironing surface perpendicular to the front of the closet system (i.e. with the ironing surface parallel with and adjacent to a partition), restrict the placement of the ironing board in its unstowed position. For example, in U.S. Pat. No. 6,253,472, the entire contents of which being incorporated herein by reference, the ironing board in its unstowed position must be placed such that the ironing surface is perpendicular to the front of the closet system, because the arm is fixed to a vertical surface of the closet system. This restriction is undesirable for several reasons. For instance, there may not be sufficient space available in the room to extend the ironing board perpendicular to the front of the closet system. Also, it is oftentimes desirable to adjust the placement of an ironing board if the lighting available in the room is poor or if the room lighting is blocked by someone using the ironing board.
Thus, a need exists for an ironing board assembly that is attached to a partition by a sliding rail assembly and which pivots once the ironing board assembly is removed from the interior of the closet system.